Best of 2018 – Life

December 31, 2018

How do I even begin to talk about this year. It’s been one of so many changes in my life. We started the year looking at Erika’s pregnancy and how that was going to affect our lives going forward. The funny thing about change is that very rarely can you accurately plan for it. You either totally under plan and are overwhelmed or you over plan and then look back thinking that you thought too much. Looking back, I feel like we kinda did a little of both at times.

Looking toward Lena’s birth in June, we wanted to be able to “do as much of the stuff we couldn’t do with a baby while we can.” So, we went to Hawaii for a vacation (including renting the most ostentatious black Mustang convertable) to enjoy our time on the beach. Erika won a trip for us to go to Vegas and so we went on as many off the strip adventures we could to enjoy the world around. I even went on a week long ski touring trip to the Kokanee Glacier Hut with some incredible humans, making sure to hike up to the one spot with cell service in order to check in and make sure Erika hadn’t gone into labor.

But then in June, Lena came into the world and the changes really started to set in. She has taken over our lives and that is good. I didn’t expect to be as enamored with her as I am. I had scoffed for years at all the other parents whose phones were just filled to the brim with images of the children that would never leave the phones, but now find my camera roll filled with the same stuff. But we have also found her to be an easy person to incorporate into the lives we lead. We take her out to restaurants, we play games at friend’s houses and we still travel (as of writing, she has been on 13 flights to 4 countries and 8 states).

So as I come to the end of the year and look back on the photos and memories that shaped it, I’m most drawn to the images that show that new mix of what normal looks like in our lives. It’s the way that I’m continuing to be myself and our family is still our family. There are still a lot of mountains to climb, countries to visit and photos to make.

Around new years, I got a Mamiya RZ67 camera and really loved using it for portraits this year. These ones of Marcus are still some of the coolest.

Medium Format portrait of Daniel.

Because we knew our lives would change post baby, Erika and I went to Hawaii for a week in the winter.